Today in the duck house, I added a small dish of water, which was very exciting for the ducklings.

Good morning ducklings!

I added the ceramic water dish (a bit foamy initially from the hose nozzle):

The Buff was first to hop into it:

But most of the others wanted to try it, too:

A duckling on top of the EcoGlow:

And the Buff eating from the tube, barely able to reach it:

Everyone wanted to hop in the water dish:

Buff eating from the tube again:

Today at the duck house, let’s all take a peek at the ducklings… including Bert.

Site note: I have tagged this year’s duckling posts as ducklings 2020, making it easier to see just the duckling posts (without the flock posts and such) for this year.

And you can even see them in chronological order (i.e. oldest to newest) via this link.

On with the show.

Let’s peek at the ducklings through a nesting box (look at that tiny wing nub on the Buff!):

Some fresh straw:

Wading in the dish; you can see droplets of water on their backs, as the fling the water everywhere. It’ll get even more damp in there once they have the paint tray pool:

Did you see the video of Bert trying to peek at the ducklings? When I did my afternoon rounds, I grabbed some spare bricks and added some below the maintenance door, so Bert could more successfully peek at the ducklings, which he did:

Cam view:

I think it’ll be good for all of them to see each other, so things go more smoothly when they can interact in the pond in a month or so.

Today at the duck house, Bert and I watch the ducklings again.

Good morning ducklings:

Refilled the water, topped up the food and bedding:

Let’s step in the water dish while eating:

Hey Bert:

Wide angle view:

Your daily dose of ducklings.

Good morning; looking damp as usual:

The daily top up of fresh bedding:

And water and food:

Hey Bert:

I added a dish for his food; easier to eat out of water than on the ground:

Your daily duckling dispatch.

Sleeping ducklings:

Not sleeping ducklings:

Let there be (day)light; I opened the cupboard door:

The usual morning mess:

Bert checking on the ducklings while I refilled their food:

I raised the heat lamp; they need lower temperatures each week. Fun fact: not sleeping under the lamp tells me that they are a little too warm:

The usual pictures of the ducklings:

Refilling the water dish from the hose; if you compare to the previous cam picture, you can see the raised heat lamp position, too:

On evening rounds, peeking through the nesting boxes below the cupboards, I caught a duck on top of the EcoGlow:

He really likes it up there; just now I saw him hop up there and stretch his tiny wings (animated GIF):

And sit for a while:

Today, a little rearranging of the duck house, in preparation for introducing supervised swimming tomorrow.

The morning mess; changes in store:

I moved the baby food dispenser to in front of the pop door, the water dispenser to the right side, the EcoGlow into a nesting box, and added more straw:

That makes room for the paint tray pool, which I’ll introduce to them tomorrow:

I’ve seen a few of them eating from the feeder tube. Remember when they couldn’t reach it? In another few weeks, they’ll be able to eat from the top hole:

An angled view of the EcoGlow in the nesting box:

I like how the two Blue Swedish ducklings (top-left) are standing identically. The left one is female, the right one is male:

They seem to like the new position of the EcoGlow; I’ve seen them actually using it:

Today I introduced the ducklings to leafy treats and the swimming pool… with mixed success.

Good morning ducklings:

Remember how I said yesterday that they’d be eating from the top feeder tube hole in a few weeks? Well, make that the next day:

What’s that green thing?

Only took them a moment to investigate it and realize it’s a tasty treat:

Next up, I added the paint tray swimming pool and ramp, with a little water:

Some hesitantly went up the ramp, but they weren’t so sure about that:

That’s as far as they got. I’ll try again tomorrow with treats in the water.

This afternoon, I briefly had another go, without any more success (but without treats). Bert wasn’t providing any encouragement; he avoided the tray when he was a duckling:

It’s warm today, and they were panting a bit, so I opened the vent above the door, and cracked the main vent:

I still left the heat lamp on, though, so they don’t get too cold overnight. They need around 76° currently, which is about the current air temperature, though it’s warmer inside the duck house. It’ll get down to 54° overnight, so still need heat.

Grown ducks are very hardy, able to cope with freezing and really hot temperatures, but ducklings are much more sensitive.